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Ogre slave-warrior

I think this should be a Chronopia Blackblood ogre, but I couldn’t find an exact reference. The paint job is not excellent, also because the miniature was already half painted when I picked it up again after years in the closet. The metals are barely ok, and the skin colours are probably too thick, but I kinda like the pain-stricken look that I think I managed to give him.

The Sin are an empire without emperor. After the death of their last regent four centuries ago, a period of bloody succession wars ensued, but no family ever managed to put their protégé on the throne. So, first as a temporary solution, and then as a symbol of the continuing authority of the empire and of the balance of power between the noble families, the golden throne has been left empty.

The imperial palace on the island of Hei is still maintained by hundreds of servants, all the routines and the offerings duly performed, but no noble is allowed to live there. All legislation is decided by nobles in private hearings, tacitly submitted to the approval of a council of monks, and then ratified in the name of the golden throne itself.

The Sin command a mighty navy and a huge merchant marine and their influence stops only where the Roburghian one commences. In the last fifty years, they have begun a colonisation of the icy northern coasts of the continent itself. Their land possessions on the Archipelago are huge and, throughout their history, the Sin have subjugated numerous other cultures, most notably the Nakkard and the Nigerthal of the north. These proud people have been reduced into slavery together with the whole population of semi-humans of the territories controlled by the throne, mainly comprised of narkum (human insects), ogres and a small number of gaumars (human lions).

Ogre slaves.

Slaves in general, and ogre slaves in particular, are used by the Sin in warfare and for hard labour. The Sin do not have a national army, but every noble house is complied to have a number of troops, proportionate to the extension of its domains, that can be put under the command of the throne. Ogres make for cheap and effective line soldiers. Given but the basic drill of combat formations and, if necessary, starved and tortured to the point of total obedience, ogres are usually poorly equipped and used in mass, or, in smaller numbers, to add a punch to human foot formations. Some generals select the most belligerents ogres and grant them privileges over the other slaves in the attempt to turn them into élite soldiers: some companies formed in this way have earned quite a reputation in the battles against the Norran clans on the shores of the North.

In general, ogres are not rebellious, and, as the Sin have quickly discovered, make for excellent slaves. Indeed, many ogres have an incredibly nihilist and self-defeatist philosophy: since every living being, in the end, serves no purpose but to endure life and die, and since no one can ever say to own its own destiny, being free or slave, and slave of one or another master, does not really make any difference to them. Thus, they accept any injustice and mistreatment with a sense of detached superiority toward their masters, who are still lost in the illusion of their own purposefulness.

The miniature shown represents one such élite ogre-warriors. He has been given a heavy splinted mail and plate armour, a helmet, an ornate round shield bearing the insignia of the blazing sun (in reference to the supposedly southern origins of the ogres, according to the Sin), and a hunky scimitar forged in a poor quality iron alloy, but which is still better than the spiked clubs with which other slaves are usually armed. When used together with Sin soldiers, ogres act as bulwarks, are sent forward in assaults or keep their ground when the Sin are assaulted. Under a good captain, a foot formation will protect the flanks of its assigned ogre, so that it doesn’t get overwhelmed by enemy soldiers before having the chance to do some damage. But still, due to the extreme racism of Sin against semi-humans (and even against different Sin ethnicities), ogres are most of the times just left to die on their own. When deployed together with other ogres, slave-warriors are usually accompanied by a Sin official, or by a particularly well drilled and dependable ogre that act as commander.